ALTA Workbook – The Haven

ALTA Workbook Week 1
Striking – Fundamental stance, footwork and first punches
In the first week, we aim to set the foundations. From making a fist, to how we stand and how we move forwards and backwards. We mention the mortal sin of fighting footwork (crossing legs) and why it’s a sin. Finally, we learn how to drill all of the above with Line work.
Making a fist
Start by rolling the tips of fingers tight against the padding at the base of your knuckles. Continue to fold the knuckles so that the palm of your hand is covered. Thumb goes on middle finger (most important to avoid spraining it).
Stance

Feet slightly more than shoulder width apart
Weaker leg diagonally to the front. Avoid being on tightrope… think of standing on train tracks, each foot has its own rail.
If you are left handed and right legged or vice versa (mixed dominance), go by your arms. In other words, put your weaker arm to the front (which means you’ll have your stronger leg to the front).
“Orthodox” (right side dominant – typically left foot in front)
“Southpaw” (left side dominant – typically right foot in front)
Press your weight forward on your toes. That doesn’t mean stand on your tippy toes. It just means that your weight is rocked forward to the ball of your foot and your heel should be in light contact with the floor.
Knees flexed. Don’t squat and don’t lock out your knees. Just flex them to allow relaxed movement in any direction.
Keep your friends close and your elbows closer. Don’t leave any gaps between your upper arms and ribs. This will be important for wrestling later.
Fists as high as your eyeballs. Your hands will float around that height. They’re not rigid in one position but the height is non-negotiable. The rear hand is close to your head (like you’re answering the phone). The lead hand is stretched more forward (like the scope on a rifle helping you to gauge distance with your opponent).
Chin tucked (as though you’re holding a pair of socks between your chin and chest). This minimises the risk of getting KOd.
Movement: You can bounce or creep. Just DO NOT CROSS OVER YOUR OWN FEET. That’s the mortal sin that will put you in an off-balanced position. When off balance, your ability to strike is compromised and also when you get hit, it affects you way more. Balance and Shape is vital. In Muay Thai, you lose points for being off balance or “losing your shape”. This bleeds into MMA.
ALTA Workbook Week 1
Jab
This is a quick snapping punch (ALWAYS FROM THE LEAD HAND) and also referred to as “One”.
Focus on snapping your lead shoulder forwards.
Make sure your lead hand starts and finishes in the same position. It goes from guard direct to the target and back in a straight line. No wind up, no giveaways and no dropping after landing.
Rotate your fist at the end of the punch. Your thumb should be the lowest point of your fist on contact.
Answer the phone with the non-punching hand. This is true for all punches at all times.
Sometimes (not always), you’ll step your front leg forwards in coordination with the jab.
Cross
This is a straight punch ALWAYS FROM THE READ HAND and is also referred to as “TWO”.
Focus on rotation. Rotate your rear shoulder to become the front. Rotate your hips so that your rear hip moves towards your front knee. Lift the heel of your rear foot and point your rear knee towards your front calf (to accommodate the rotation).
Keep 50/50 weight distribution between left and right legs. Even though you lift your rear heel, 50% of your weight should still be on your back leg balanced on the ball of your foot. This is what’s called “Sitting down on the punch”. Avoid leaning forward. Your head should remain over your hips.
As with the jab, your punch travels in a straight line from your guard directly to and from the target with no wind up, no giveaways and no dropping.
Non-punching hand answers the phone.
Touch Step
This refers to the movement of one foot (either front or back).
Touch Jab is when you move your front foot forward on the jab and then quickly return to the starting position.
Touch Cross is when you move your back foot back. On the return to the start position is when you land the cross.
Called a “touch” because you simply touch your foot and immediately return almost like stepping on a hot plate.
Hop Step
For this step, both feet move aggressively forwards.
You lift your front foot and drive your back foot into the ground to propel yourself forward. While your front foot gets a head start, both feet land almost at the same time.
If you land the jab as both feet land, we call that the “Hop jab”. Add the cross to get a “Hop Jab, Two”.
Shuffle Step ALTA Workbook Week 1
This involves both feet again but has two movements in the forwards direction.
The 4 steps are: Front foot, back foot, front foot, back foot. There are exactly 4 steps (not 5, not 15…. Be precise).
If you add a jab on the land of your front foot each time, now you have a “Double Jab”.
Make sure your back foot is propelling you forward each time. Drive that into the ground to launch yourself forward.
For the “Double Jab, Cross”, footwork is: Front, Back, Front, Toe. Still 4 steps only. The cross happens on the completion of the fourth step (which has the ball of your foot planted into the ground, heel elevated).
Skip Step
This involves both feet again but the order of feet is different.
Back leg moves first and almost touches your front leg. Just before they touch, your front leg moves.
While your front leg is in motion, your back will land first. After that, your front foot will land.
Overall, this is slower than the hop step, but you will cover far more ground.
To disguise the slow movement, we add a head movement which we call “Bop the Baby”. Violent shift your head down to the side of your lead leg before commencing the skip step. This distracts and hides your footwork.
Adding hands: The jab will occur as you are airborne and will have zero power. It’s just a distraction. Think of the sound “Boop” like when you touch someone playfully on the nose with your finger. The cross will happen after both legs are done. There’s a significant delay before that second punch. However, the added momentum will give a large boost in power.
While “Hop Jab, Two” and “Skip Jab, Two” are very similar, the difference is represented by the trade off of speed and power. Both are valid and have their own applications at different times. Make sure you clearly understand the difference between them.
Creeping or Stalking (not hobby horse)
This refers to the manner of movement either forwards or backwards. You never walk. You make small incremental steps whilst maintaining shape, balance and posture. Your feet should not come together (maintain shoulder at least shoulder width at all times).
Line Work
This refers to the drill where you proceed in a straight line across the mat practicing your footwork and combinations. In week 1, we performed the following lengths of the mat:
Creeping forward/Back while maintaining shape and posture.
Touch Jab and Touch Cross
Hop Jab, Two
Double Jab
Double Jab, Cross
Skip Jab, Two (aka Bop the Baby) ALTA Workbook Week 1
Shoulder and Knees Game
This “game” is introduced as the scaffolding that we will build your entire fighting repertoire upon. The goal is simple. Use an open hand to touch your partner’s knee or shoulder as often as you can. Don’t let them do the same to you.
Grappling – Shrimp, Shoulder walk, Break Fall, Technical Stand Up, Sprawl
Just like in the striking classes, week 1 is all about the foundational building blocks. There’s no Jiu Jitsu yet, as such. This is your Wax On, Wax Off week.
Shrimp (aka hip escape)
Used in various bottom positions to get out from under someone. It’s way easier to slip out from under someone, like a mechanic on a creeper board from under a car, than it is to lift someone off of you.
Start on your back with your feet as close to your hips as possible
Lift your hips as high as you can off the floor (glute bridge). Once your hips are up off the ground, they don’t return until you complete all following steps.
Turn on to one side (balancing on the ball of your shoulder and your feet).
Crunch your chest down towards your knees.
Push your legs into the ground which should propel your ass backwards (NOT YOUR SHOULDER). Your ass should end up where your head started. Now you can put your hips back on the floor.
Re-align yourself to the starting angle and bring your feet back close to your hips in preparation for another rep.
You can reverse engineer this sequence to get a forward moving shrimp. Not as common but still very useful to know.
Shoulder Walk
This refers to the undulating movement backwards you can make while rotating your shoulders in sequence. Your back stays on the floor for this and your feet can be used to assist the movement. The shoulder walk is used to gain distance away from an attacker before sitting up for a tech stand (next movement). If you sit up too early, they’ll kick or punch you in the head.
Backwards Breakfall
Breakfalling in general refers to the technique of landing safely without injuring yourself. The first one we learn is the backwards breakfall. ALTA Workbook Week 1
Starting from a seated position, roll backwards allowing your hips to lift off the floor. Don’t allow your head to hit the mat.
Next time, use your arms to slap the floor beside your hips just as your hips lift off the mat. Don’t be afraid to make some noise. Make sure your palms face the mat and hit the floor with your whole arm, not just your hand. This is more a symbolic gesture that conditions you and reminds you to only put your hands on the mat at the very end. Most injuries from falling occur when people put their hands down to protect themselves from falling. This leads to sprained wrists, dislocated elbows or shoulders and broken collar bones. By learning exactly when and where to slap your arms on the mat, you are learning to protect your limbs.
Once you’ve mastered that, do the same movement from a deep squatted position with your hand stretched out ahead of you. It’s exactly the same thing, just starting from higher up.
Finally, do it from standing up. Remember to first squat on the way to the floor. Don’t fall like a tree in the woods.
Technical Stand Up (aka Tech Stand).
This is how you get up most safely facing an opponent.
Start by making sure you’ve made enough distance between you and your opponent (using shrimp and/or shoulder walk)
Sit up with one hand behind you (fingers facing backwards), other hand up in front between you and your opponent. The front hand is the “placebo hand”. It does absolutely nothing to save you but it makes you feel better.
Whatever hand is behind you, that same side leg stretches out in front. The opposite leg bends until your heel is close to your hip.
Elevate your straight leg and hips off the ground balancing on your back hand and bent leg.
Fold your straight leg under you at the same time as you point your chest to the floor. Pointing your chest to the floor is the most important step to unlock the movement. Impossible to complete without it.
Place your leg on the floor behind you and stand up.
Throughout the movement, you should have your eyes and placebo hand locked on your opponent. Never lose sight of them.
As you get better at this, perform the whole technique while backing up. Your opponent will likely be chasing after you while you’re trying to stand so you need to keep moving back away from them as you complete the tech stand.
Sprawl
This is the common defence for double leg takedowns (later lessons). Your goal is to get your hips back and far away from your opponent. The solo sprawl is more a drill than a real technique. How this is used in real applications will differ but the skill of shooting your hips back aggressively is learned best using the sprawl.
Start from standing in your fight stance.
Hands go to the mat in front of you ALTA Workbook Week 1
Shoot both legs back as far as you can (laces down).
Your hips should plant firmly on the mat but your arms are locked out straight. This will put you in a Cobra style pose. Avoid the temptation to put your chest on the floor. We are not doing burpees here.
Next, hop your feet back under your hips and stand up to your starting position.
Isolation Drills – putting these movements into practice.
To get high volume reps on this we incorporate them into our shoulder and knees game with the coach calling out “Sprawl”, or “Back Fall”.
We also have the push and slap drill. Partner A pushes Partner B. B performs a backwards break fall to safely land on their back. A steps forward to stand either side of B’s hips. B performs a shrimp (push off A’s shins). Once clear of A’s legs, B shoulder walks to get clear even more distance, then tech stands back to the starting position. As B gets better, A will walk forwards attempting to slap B in the head as they are tech standing.
We can also perform all of these movement in line work drills during the warmup phase.
Wrestling – 50/50 over/under position and Pummelling
Week 1 is all about getting to grips with some basic terminology and positions. No major takedowns or defences are covered, just some important building blocks.
50/50 or Over/under position
This is a neutral position that’s common in wrestling exchanges. Both partners have an underhook and an overhook.
Underhook refers to your arm that’s under your opponent’s arm reaching around their back.
Overhook is when your arm is draped over your opponent’s. You’ll commonly have your hand on their tricep and also pinching their arm to your ribs using your elbow.
Your head should always be on the opposite side to your underhook.
Whatever side you have an underhook on, that leg should be in front of you. So you have a leg directly under your underhook so that you can lift it.
In the 50/50 position, you’ll both be trying to off-balance each other by pushing, pulling, turning to gain an advantage.
Your opponent may also be attempting to drop and grab your legs to take you down with a double leg. Your over/under grips should deny them access to your legs if you lift them up.
Pummelling ALTA Workbook Week 1
This is a drill that’s tricky to learn but teaches some very important wrestling foundational skills such as foot work and digging for underhooks.
Start from 50/50 position (neutral)
Each partner will take their overhook hand to their chest and dig for an underhook on that side. In essence, both are looking for double underhooks but because they do it at the same time, they’ll just end up swapping underhooks instead.
The tricky part is swapping your head to the opposite side in coordination with digging an underhook.
Start the pummell drill with both feet level to each other and ignore the footwork but once you have the upper body movement mastered, add the following footwork:
Front leg steps level with back leg. Then Back leg steps forward to become your new front leg. This movement should coordinate with the upper body movements.
Isolation Drills

Once you’ve mastered pummelling, you can do a call out drill as follows. Both partners begin by cooperating in the pummel movement. When the coach shouts “Go”, cooperation turns to competition. Now both are looking to get double under and lift the other up off the mat.
From the 50/50 position, you can drill by having both partners looking to off balance one another with the aim being to get to a double leg (grab both legs around thigh height).
ALTA Workbook Week 1
ALTA Workbook Week 2
Striking – Straight punching combos and drills
Mostly, this week is a second bite of the cherry on material from week 1. We want to take the basic steps and put straight punches with them to get comfortable with our first combinations. Then, we’ll start becoming very familiar with drills that allow us to do a lot of volume of repetition, so that we get better and better.
Combinations using week 1 footwork

Stiff jab (using the touch step)
Pull, Cross (using the touch step backwards)
Hop jab, Two (using the hop step)
Double jab (using the shuffle step)
Double jab, Cross (using a variation on the shuffle step)
Skip jab, Two (aka “Bop the baby”, using the skip step)
Drills
Line work: Repeating your combinations while travelling forwards or backwards across the mat in a straight line.
Shadow Boxing: Repeating your combinations whilst moving around in random patterns visualising actually fighting someone.
In both drills, it’s vital to focus on precision and correct sequence. Never gloss over the movements and accept mediocre reps. Strive for perfection. These are your building blocks for more complex movements later. Get these half right and your foundations will crumble when you build on them.
Record yourself!
It’s very useful when practicing to take video footage to review. The camera doesn’t lie. You may think you’re Mohammed Ali when you’re doing a drill only to watch it back on video after to realise you’re actually more like Ali G.
Grappling – Open Guard Bottom
This position follows on very nicely from week one with our backwards breakfalls and tech standing. We will use those movements throughout this position along with upkicks and a few variations on sweeps.
ALTA Workbook Week 2
Base posture and Party Legs
When knocked to the ground, your first priority will always be to get your legs between you and your opponent. They are your last line of defence preventing your opponent from jumping on top of you or kicking you in the head. From our base posture we can stop the rot and begin our build back.
Your back is on the floor, hands on the mat beside you, one leg on the mat and the other up in a ready position to up-kick. DO NOT SIT UP YET!
Be ready to rotate and spin to keep your legs between you and your opponent. They may try to run around you or side step so use your arms and bottom leg to manoeuvre to a defensive position.
“Party legs”. If your opponent grabs your foot/feet in an attempt to swing them aside, use party legs to free yourself and return to base posture.
Up-kicks
This is the reason why we do a lot of glute bridges in our Conditioning workouts. The up-kick is very effective as a deterrent and helps establish range.
From base posture, use your bottom leg to push your hips high off the floor. Your top leg kicks in a stomping or pushing motion upwards at your opponent.
Targets include the chest, stomach or head (for the sport of MMA). In self defence, you can also target the groin or the knee (we avoid this in training for safety purposes).
If your opponent is standing close enough, you can stand on their lead thigh with your bottom leg and get an even higher kick (usually this is necessary to reach the head if they are standing upright).
Tech stand
If your upkicks are effective and you earn some range with your opponent stepping back, this is a great time to attempt your tech stand.
Be prepared to bail and reset if your opponent closes back the range quickly. Just because you start a tech stand doesn’t mean you have to complete it – especially if range changes midway through the technique. Safety first, always.
Tripod Sweep
If your opponent persists through your upkick range, this will open the opportunity for the sweep series. “Sweep” refers to reversing your position from bottom to being on top. The tripod sweep is the first opportunity you’ll get.
With one of your hands, grab the heel of their foot that’s closest to you. Prevent them from stepping back with that leg.
Use your corresponding leg to step on their hip that’s closest to you. (eg your right hand holds their heel, your right foot stands on their hip).
Your second foot hooks behind the knee of your opponent’s other leg.
Pull your bottom two grips and push the top one. This will cause your opponent to fall backwards. ALTA Workbook Week 2
Keep hold of their heel as they fall and you begin to sit up. Lift their foot up and pass it to your other hand (as if you were holding the Olympic Torch). The higher you lift their leg the better. This guarantees that they cannot stand up while you do and gives you the time you need to stand up.
As you hold the leg up, perform a tech stand to gain the higher ground.
Tomahawk or Sickle sweep
This variation is available when your opponent pushes the foot you have on their hip between their legs. Effectively, they’ll stop your tripod sweep, but they’ll give you a different sweep.
As they push the foot you’ve got on the hip down between their legs, quickly replace that foot with your other foot on their hip. You’ll need to turn on your side to reach across.
The foot that they push inside will now hook behind their foot that’s furthest away from you.
You still have a hold of their heel that’s closest to you with your hand.
Now you’ve got a different configuration of the tripod sweep. Once again, pull your bottom two grips and push your top one.
Repeat the Olympic Torch and Tech Stand as before.
De la Riva Sweep (DLR)
This variation is available when your opponent pushes the foot you have on their hip to the outside. Once again, this kills the tripod sweep, but opens the door for the DLR.
As they push the foot you’ve got on their hip to the outside, wrap your instep around the back of their hamstring on the leg that’s closest to you.
You keep the grip you have on the heel of their foot that’s closest to you with your hand.
Your other leg switches from hooking the back of their knee to instead pushing that leg away from you at the front of their thigh. (It’s a stomping action. Just be careful not to injure your partner’s knee doing this). This action will cause them to spread their legs a lot wider.
Now take that stomping leg and switch it to the hip that’s closest to you. You’ll now have both your legs on one of theirs.
Push on their hip with your top leg and because of their wide stance, their balance will be very compromised. They will fall.
As with previous variations, use the Olympic Torch and tech stand to get top position. On this technique, your legs will be tangled up with the DLR so you’ll need to perform an extra motion of untangling your legs as they fall over before you can do the Tech Stand.
Idiot sweep
The final variation occurs when your opponent steps even closer to you. This is called the Idiot sweep because it’s a rookie mistake by the top person to allow you to get hold of both their ankles. ALTA Workbook Week 2
From the tripod position, use your bottom leg which is hooking the back of their knee to pull that leg to you. This should allow you to also now grab the back of that heel. You now have both their heels caught with your hands.
Now you can circle your leg that’s standing on their hip inside to hook behind that knee (mirroring the hook you have with the other leg). This foot position is called “butterfly hooks”.
Holding the heels, you now use your butterfly hooks to push their knees apart, causing them to fall backwards helplessly.
Again, as with all the variations, use the Olympic Torch and Tech Stand to get top.
Drilling your Open Guard Sweep Series
This series of sweeps and the open guard bottom position as a whole has a lot of details and you will be overwhelmed by it trying to remember everything. The only way to get past this is by drilling it round after round. The more reps you get, the more muscle memory you’ll build and eventually it will become second nature.
Partner Cooperation (rep for rep): One way of drilling is to cooperate with a partner. Start from standing and A pushes B. B lands with a breakfall and assumes the upkick posture. From there, A will attempt to go around the legs or grab the feet. This gives B a chance to practice upkicks and party legs. A then offers up one of their legs to be grabbed so that B can assume the tripod sweep position. A can either allow the tripod sweep to happen or push B’s foot off the hip to prompt for a tomahawk or DLR sweep. Sometimes, A can even step forward closer to allow the Idiot sweep. Once the sweep happens, reverse roles and continue. Vary the cues to allow the defending partner to react to realistic signals.
Shark Tank: This drilling system allows large groups to practice an isolated position very efficiently. The entire class is split into 3 groups (Team A, Team B and Team C). A will be in the tank first for a 5 minute round. B and C will be their opponents. A will take a space on the mat. B/C will form a queue against the wall. Whoever is at the front of the queue will go to any A that does not have a partner. They will push A to the ground and work through the sweep series as described above. B/C will be swept by A for the entire round. Each time B/C gets swept, they return to the back of the queue and a new partner from the front of the queue will take their place. For round 2, B is in the tank with A/C in the queue and for round 3, C is in the tank with A/B in the queue.
Resistance Levels when drilling: When drilling, it’s important to realise you’re not sparring. You don’t win in drilling. It’s a method where you help your partner to get better by giving them realistic movement and balance. You can add resistance as they get the hang of the technique but always gradually over the duration of the round. You should make it challenging, not impossible. When it’s time to resist, the coach will let you know.
Wrestling – Single Leg Takedown
This is the first freestyle wrestling takedown we learn in ALTA. “Single” refers to the fact that you’re going to grab on to one of your partner’s legs (as opposed to both). There are a ALTA Workbook Week 2
number of variations and chains (combinations) of single legs. We’ll start with “Head inside” and “Run the pipe” and then apply the same technique to the “Head outside” variation.
Gable Grip and Rowing action
The gable grip is used on a wide range of positions and refers to a palm to palm grip. Interlocking fingers is weak by comparison and also impossible with MMA gloves on so learning to grip palm to palm early is very advantageous. The rowing action refers to the process of pulling your elbows back and around your rib cage. Visualise touching both elbows together at your spine. This is impossible to do but the point is to try to do it. The gable grip in conjunction with the rowing action is what will give you the best attachment to the single leg.
Rule of the Single Nipple
This rule is a good guide to help you ensure you maintain correct posture in the takedown. If your head ends up in the stomach or crotch region of your opponent during a head inside single, they will easily sprawl on top of you and stuff your attempt. On the head outside single, the same posture will get you choked with a guillotine. To avoid both, focus on attaching one of your ears to one of their nipples. Like lego bricks, they should click together.
“Run the pipe” and footwork
This refers to a type of movement derived from old school railway construction workers. The image you should have is of passing a steel railway track backwards between your legs to the next person. It will help you to do the correct motion in the single leg takedown. There’s a step and pivot just before ‘running the pipe’ and it takes a bit of practice to get the coordination right. Memorise the phrase “Step towards the standing leg. Pivot away from the elevated leg”. This will create a hole for them to fall into. You’ll always be sitting them down on the side where they have no leg, regardless of the variation you’re doing.
No Bulldozer
On the single leg takedowns, most people will be tempted to use their head to push their opponent over (bulldozer). This is not correct and will lead to neck pain (or injury). Instead, focus on gripping their thigh bone (femur) as tight as possible. Then think about sticking the femur into the ground like a stake. The “run the pipe” footwork will take care of the direction.
Head inside Single
Using a gable grip to pick up your opponent’s leg, put your head on the inside looking across their chest. Don’t forget the rule of the single nipple.
Gable Grip details: Palm up on your hand that’s between their legs. Palm down on the hand that goes around the back of their leg.
Make sure the front on their thigh is attached to your belly. This will require you to grip high on their thigh and not behind the back of the knee. If their shin or knee cap ALTA Workbook Week 2
is on your belly, your grip is too low and you don’t have control of their hip. Adjust your grip higher.
Make sure your legs are side by side, with their leg between your two thighs. You can squeeze your thighs around their leg but this will restrict the run the pipe footwork later so be ready to unsqueeze or else don’t squeeze at all.
Run the pipe. Step across the front of their standing leg with your leg that’s closest to it. Then step your other leg back away from them (pivot). As you land your second step, drag their thigh down towards the floor. You’ll effectively be sitting them down on the side where they have no leg.
Don’t hold on to the anchor! As they fall, you can loosen your grip so that they fall while you remain standing.
Head Outside Single
The mechanics of the finish of the outside single is identical to the head inside. It’s actually easier to implement too (just more dangerous because of the potential guillotine choke). The only difference is the position of your head in the beginning.
Using a gable grip to pick up your opponent’s leg, put your head on the outside looking towards or through their armpit. Don’t forget the rule of the single nipple. DO NOT STICK YOUR HEAD THROUGH THEIR ARMPIT.
Gable Grip details: Palm up on your hand that’s between their legs. Palm down on the hand that goes around the back of their leg.
All other steps from the head inside are the same. Just remember to step towards their standing leg and pivot to sit them on the side they’ve got no leg.
Don’t hold on to the anchor! As they fall, you can loosen your grip so that they fall while you remain standing.
Entries to the Single (from striking range)
Once you have the mechanics of the single leg takedown, your next challenge will be to get from a striking range to the wrestling range. We call this the ‘entry step’. There are 3 in total and depending on which takedown you want and what your relative stances are, you need to adapt accordingly.
Relative Stances
This refers to the stance both you and your partner have relative to each other. For example you could both be orthodox stance, both be southpaw or you could be opposites. We refer to the possible combinations as either Open or Closed.
Open Stance: When you and your opponent have opposite stances (orthodox versus southpaw or vice versa). If you imagine a straight line between your heels and another straight line between your opponent’s heels. Then ask yourself, do those two lines make a V shape? Like an Open book? That signifies Open stance.
Closed Stance: If the two lines are parallel (like a closed book || ), then you’re in a closed stance. ALTA Workbook Week 2
It can be complicated trying to think about orthodox, southpaw, left leg, right leg and the mirror images etc. Open and Closed stance is a far easier way to define relative stances and informs tactics and techniques that are appropriate in each case.
Entry Steps
Skip Jab Entry: From week 1 striking, you’ll be familiar with the skip jab. This is a great distance closer to get you from striking range to wrestling range.
Cross Step Entry: This refers to punching first (using a cross) and then taking a full step forward with your rear leg to close the distance.
Level Change Entry: This is when your opponent comes to you (usually throwing a punch combination). Effectively, they are the ones closing the range and you simply take advantage of that by ducking under their hands to grab hold of their legs.
In the beginning it will be very confusing to figure out which entry step you should use and what type of takedown that gives you. For example “I’m in an open stance and I want a head inside single, which entry step is that?”. Try not to overthink it. Focus on closing the distance and making a connection. When you get there, it will be obvious which takedown is available then and muscle memory will take over, provided you have your reps done. ALTA Workbook Week 2
ALTA Workbook Week 3
Striking – Kicking Fundamentals (roundhouse, push, knee)
These are the 3 most common fundamental strikes using your legs. This session’s goal is to get you throwing the strikes and hitting the kick shields to explore the movement and range.
Roundhouse Kick
Included in this category are calf kicks, leg kicks, body kicks, head kicks. Regardless of the final target, the technique has common features.
Striking area: Make sure you’re landing with your shin (not your foot). This is not football. If you kick an elbow or a knee with your foot, that’s going to cause injury. Make sure you get close enough to where the striking area is the bottom third of your shin. Now, you still want to avoid hard targets (like the elbow, knee or shins) but just do yourself a favour and protect your foot.
Rotate the standing foot: To facilitate the rotation of your hips, focus on allowing your standing foot to rotate. This will require you to take weight off your heel so that the ball of the foot can spin. In Muay Thai, they recommend you come right up on your toes to achieve this. In traditional styles like Karate and TaeKwonDo, the heel lift is more subtle. Either way, rotate that standing leg.
Arm Movement: Your arms have an important role in your balance and control. The kicking-side arm will need to swing back (opposite direction to the kick) while the non-kicking-side arm will come across the face to provide cover for counter punches. Think of “Dabbing” (as in that trend amongst the cool kids in the mid 2010s).
Push Kick (aka “Teep”)
Muay Thai is the sport which utilises this kick more than any other martial arts. They call it the “teep”. Think of what you’d do if you had to kick a door down. Or alternatively, if you remember the film “300” when King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) kicked the messenger of Xerxes (Peter Mensah) into a bottomless pit and screamed “THIS… IS… SPARTAAAAAA!”.
Lead leg teep: This variation is more to maintain distance. It will lack the power of the rear leg but is useful as a “Get away from me!” kind of kick.
Rear leg teep: Now we’re King Leonidas. This is the power teep and can push your partner way back.
Switch Teep or Step up Teep: These variations can give the lead leg teep some of the power of the rear teep but at the cost of telegraphing your movement. We’ll come back to these at a later time.
Knee
In amateur MMA, you’re not allowed to knee to the head of your opponent. However, knees to the body or thighs are extremely effective and are definitely worth investing time to get good at them. ALTA Workbook Week 3
Striking Area: At fight time, you’ll use your knee cap as the striking area. However, during drilling or sparring with training partners, it’s customary to use softer areas like the inside of the thigh to make contact (just to avoid rib injury).
Arms: If you’re close enough, you’ll use your arms to hold your opponent’s upper body (usually the back of their neck or shoulder) to pull them into your knee. Sometimes, if you’re further away, it might not be possible to reach the upper body before you knee (particularly if you’re using the knee as an entry to the clinch – more on this later).
Kick Shield Holding
At this point, it’s a good idea for you to practice these strikes on a large kick shield. This will allow you to just give it a go. Holding the kick shield is also very valuable. It allows you to feel the impact of kicks and knees without getting injured. Your body will learn to brace for impact and to balance in opposition to hard strikes. You’ll also get a bird’s eye view of your partner’s technique, allowing you to notice what’s working and what’s not working.
For Roundhouse kicks, make sure the kicker only sees the side wall of the kickshield. Don’t face the pad towards them. Make it perpendicular so that they kick around the corner.
For push Kicks: Face the pad directly at your partner. Also make sure to have a strong stance (stagger your legs front and back and prepare to be pushed backwards). Be aware of your lead knee. If the kicker is off target, you may find your knee being pushed the wrong way. Keep reminding your partner to aim for the centre of the shield.
For Knees: Turn the shield in the horizontal configuration and also lean your chest a bit more forward so that the shield is angled slightly downwards. Keep reminding your partner to aim for the centre of the shield and beware of accidental groin strikes.
Hand placement on the kick shield: I always recommend ignoring the straps of kick shields. Instead hold the top and bottom of the shield so that you can quickly transition to holding for all 3 of the strikes above.
Grappling – Passing the Open Guard
In the previous week, we used an open guard to up-kick and sweep from the bottom position. This week is the other side of the equation. Our goal will not only be to avoid the attacks from the bottom player but to press on with our own agenda, which will be to get past their legs to a more dominant position. We’ll start from distance and work our way closer.
Kick the legs and/or stand back to let them up
If the person on the bottom is doing a good job of pointing an up-kicking leg towards you and it doesn’t seem that safe to get closer, you always have the option of kicking their legs. Good targets include the calves or the thighs. You’ll need to find a good angle to land clean and respect the potential upkick that will come back at you, towards your knees in particular. It’s very common that the danger of upkicks isn’t worth the risk. You’ll quite often see the top ALTA Workbook Week 3
player in this situation will stand back and allow the bottom player to stand up, resetting to a striking position. That decision comes down to risk/reward. If the top player has a striking advantage, standing back and letting the bottom person back up is the correct decision. If, on the other hand, the bottom player is a dangerous striker, it’s probably best not to let them back up. You have to weigh up the risk/reward for each situation.
Posture on approach
Most importantly, keep your head back on approach. You will be tempted to lean forward to grab their legs, but if your head is close enough, the up-kick can reach your face and that is not a good result. You also need to make sure to approach with a split stance (ie. one leg in front of the other). We learned the “Idiot Sweep” last week which sweeps an opponent when they stance square to you. Don’t fall for that when you’re the top player.
First Connection
As you approach, the bottom person will up-kick or push you back with their feet on your hips. If you want to pass, you’re going to have to endure that danger zone until you find your first connection. Usually this is a foot on your hip (with the same ankle being grabbed by their hand). Your first priority will be to get their foot off your hip while using your shin to press against the back of their upper thigh (hamstrings). This will compress and restrict that leg, reducing their ability to kick on that side. Their other leg is still a threat, so the next goal will be to snatch that. It may take a couple of goes, but you will be able to grab around their ankle with your hand. Use that grip to both prevent an upkick and to stop them hooking behind your knee. At this point, you’ve eliminated most of the danger and provided you keep your balance here, you now have an opportunity to strike.
Ground and Pound – Stage 1
Use your arm that’s closer to land some shots. You can jab straight forwards, hammer fist or hook. Just pick open targets and be accurate. The goal here will be to force the bottom person to let go of your ankle as they will be likely to use both arms to protect their face against your punches. Don’t use your hand that’s furthest from them to punch. That hand has an important job (to keep a tight grip of the leg they want to upkick you with). At this stage, just focus on lead hand strikes.
Re-adjust as necessary
As we go through the stages, it’s likely the bottom player will get a leg free or swap which of their feet is pushing on your hips or which of their legs is up-kicking. You’ll need to adjust in real time to neutralise the threats and maintain control of their legs. As you may imagine, this is never going to be easy.
ALTA Workbook Week 3
Passing the legs
It’s common to see an opportunity here to push the bottom player’s legs to one side and just pass at this point. You could advance to a side control or knee ride situation although, there’s a good chance a scramble for position will happen, where the bottom player may get an opportunity to wrestle up. Again, you have to weigh up the risk/reward based on your ability and theirs in terms of grappling. This may or may not be the correct choice, but it is an option and will get you past the danger of up-kicks.
Ground and Pound – Stage 2
This is the preferred option in most cases. In stage 2 we advance to stand directly over the bottom player, using pinning pressure and punching down on them with both arms. This is where you have to be hyper aware of the Idiot Sweep. Keep their feet off your hips and their knees close to their own head. You can achieve this by lifting their feet up as you walk forwards, advancing to catching behind the back of each of their knees giving you the ability to push their knees towards their head. This compresses them into a very uncomfortable, cramped position. Pin them there by driving forwards with your own hips against their lower back and focus on punching through their legs. It won’t be long before they choose to let you pass (either by letting their legs fall to one side, or by them back rolling into a turtle position). In either case, be ready to progress to a top dominant position as they capitulate to your pressure.
Drilling this scenario
There’s quite a lot of detail and variation in the steps above. The best way to get really good at it is to play the position with a gradually increasing level of resistance. Now that you know both the top and bottom of Open Guard, both partners can really present each other with realistic pressure. You can drill this best with a shark tank drill. Just be sure that the purpose of drilling is for everyone to get better. There’s no winners/losers so park your ego and always adjust your resistance to your current training partner. It should be difficult, not impossible. Offer each other different cues and present opportunities to use all the variations of the position. The goal is to make the full gambit of techniques second nature. This can only happen with high volume reps and playing the position for extended periods of time.
Wrestling – Double Leg Takedown
Following on from the Single Legs from last week, the difference now is that we are grabbing both of our partner’s legs in this takedown. There are dozens of variations of double leg takedowns. We’ll learn just a couple and I would advise you to find the one or two variations that suit you best and just stick with them. You don’t need to know all variations to be effective.
ALTA Workbook Week 3
Posture and Connection
As with last week, the Rule of the Single Nipple will be crucial. Correct posture will keep you safe from being sprawled on and also getting choked with a guillotine. As well as head position, you want a tight connection. First you’ll want to eliminate any gaps between your neck/shoulder area and their chest/ribs. Focus on pressing the contour of your upper neck/shoulders around the ribs of your partner. Gaps offer the opportunity for chokes and takedown defence. Connection is also important at hip level. You want to get your hips under theirs. We’ll talk about having a leg in the middle in the next section too. Your arms should grip around their thighs. Get as much surface area connection between your hands and their legs. Wrap your arms as deeply as you can around the back of their thighs and then row your elbow back to lock them in tight. A good connection makes the finish of the takedown more likely to be successful so spend time discovering how you can perfect each aspect of this idea before moving on.
Lead Leg in the Middle (head on opposite side)
All variations of double leg takedowns call for your lead leg to be between your partners both legs. You’re splitting their legs. This is referred to as the “penetration step” and allows for maximum connection to their hips. As a general rule, your head will always be opposite your lead leg. So for example, if your left leg is in front, your head will be to the right and vice versa.
Knee Down or not?
In Freestyle wrestling, you’ll see players driving their lead knee down to the mat in what’s called a “shoot”. This is a method of getting in under your partners hips to maximise your ability to lift them or knock them over. As wrestlers are the experts in taking people down, then it would follow that we should also do the same, right? Well, the difference is striking. As MMA athletes, we need to also worry about knees to the head. The lower we shoot, the higher the chance of ducking into a knee. Even though knees to the head are illegal in amateur MMA, we still train to avoid the risk of accidental knees. With this in mind, I would almost always recommend no knee down for MMA but if you have a fast shot and are good at those variations, you can make a calculated decision on the risk/reward in your situation.
Entry steps
Another difference from Wrestling/BJJ and MMA is the fact that we need to score takedowns from striking range. This means we’ve got to close the distance from much further away than grapplers do. There are 3 main entries:
Skip in (use bop the baby to disguise). This is where the back leg moves first initiating a skip step to allow you drive your lead leg through both your opponent’s leg for a deep penetration step.
Cross & Step. This time, we throw a cross punch (back hand) and take a full complete step forwards with your rear leg. Aim again to split their legs with a deep penetration step. ALTA Workbook Week 3
Level Change (reactive). This is where your opponent moves forward (usually launching a punch combination) and then you level change (duck under the punches) and make your connection reactively.
Which entry you use will often depend on your relative stances. We spoke about this in previous weeks (Open book and closed book stance configurations). For now, get good at all 3 and worry about when to apply them at a later stage.
Straight Blast Double
This is a no knee down variation. It’s also the origins of the name of SBG (Straight Blast Gym). Using your entry steps and connection from above, the finish of this takedown needs 2 things. “Row” and “Run”.
“Row”. Pull your arms back sharply. This will greatly restrict your partner’s ability to escape their hips or stagger backwards for balance. Don’t Lift, just row.
“Run”. Once you’ve decided to go, just run. Don’t shuffle or mince, RUN!
This will result in a high impact takedown. You can choose to stay connected and go to ground with your opponent or you can let go as you feel them go off the cliff, opting to stand over them to land some ground and pound. That’s your choice.
Knee Down and Cut the Corner.
For this variation, we’ll use a traditional knee down shoot. You’ll still start from the entry step and connection as above. This time, you’re going to drive your front knee to the ground about a foot or more behind your partner’s heels. At the same time, you should sag all your body weight on them (like a drunk friend falling over while hugging). The act of shooting your knee to the ground should get them beginning to stagger back. If they didn’t stagger back, your shot was too shallow or your penetration step started too far away. Once they begin to stagger, it’s far easier to complete the rest of the takedown. Step up on your rear leg on the side your head is on. Then step up on your lead leg outside their leg that’s furthest from your head. Your hands will now act as blockers. As you drive into your partner at a right angle, don’t allow their legs to stagger (and rebalance). Run them over sideways. Just like in the Straight Blast Double, you can choose to land on top of them or stand over them to finish.
Drilling
The most effective drill for this is “Piggy in Middle”. The person in the middle will shoot on the person either side alternately for a full round (3 mins). The two partners who will be taken down just stand in a square stance offering little or no resistance. The person in the middle goes back and forth completing as many takedowns as possible for the entire round. ALTA Workbook Week 3
ALTA Workbook Week 4
Striking – Hooks, Bodyshots and Uppercuts (HBUs)
HBU’s are all about power punching from close range. These are most likely to be the punches that cause most damage when landed correctly, potentially a KO (knock-out). While they are 3 separate techniques, there’s major overlap in the underlying concepts so we learn them together as a group.
Different Ranges
I mentioned close range. Let’s specify what that means, as well as defining the 4 major ranges you’ll need to know. I use a colour code to make it more efficient to understand.
Green Range
Yellow Range
Red Range
Black Range
Green for Safe. This is when you’re well outside striking range. The only danger here is verbal insults or gang signs.
You may be safe but you also have very few options to attack from here so in an actual fight, this is the most rare of ranges.
Certain martial arts styles like points style kickboxing have a collection of blitz attacks from this range, but it’s highly specialised and not that common in MMA.
The other application of Green Range is in evasive manoeuvring (ie running away from an aggressive opponent)
Think of yellow/amber weather warnings. You’re not in extreme danger but you’re not safe either.
This is the most common range and typically where you find yourself when playing the knees and toes warm up drill.
At this range, both you and your opponent can land kicks on each other as well as straight punches (if you take a step closer).
Most often, you’ll see jabs and leg kicks from here and the strikes will be non-committal (like dipping a toe in the water).
Red is for danger. This is the KO zone. You don’t want to stay here longer than you need to be. Both have the ability to throw power punches from here including HBUs and also knees are a danger here too.
This is also the range where takedowns begin. Even if you have a striking advantage, staying in the Red range puts you at risk of being taken down.
Any time you’re in the Red range, your guard has to be maximally tight (ie fists pressed against your temples and elbows pressed to your ribs).
Black for darkness. This is the clinch range, where often your vision is somewhat obscured.
Here you’ll be pummelling for underhooks or using a Muay Thai style clinch to off balance your opponent and score knees to the body or takedowns.
In professional MMA, this would also be where elbows are landed. However, there are no elbow strikes in Amateur MMA.
All Cagework is done in the Black range so you will spend a good bit of time here. ALTA Workbook Week 4
Common concepts for HBU
The following 4 concepts are not actual techniques per se. They are ideas/cues to guide your punching mechanics. It’s important to understand these first.

Open Shoulder
This refers to the distance between your bicep and the pectoral muscle of your punching arm. “Open” means those two muscles should be far apart. If, as you’re punching, you notice your bicep move towards (or touch) your pectoral muscles, you’ve “closed” your shoulder and this is now what we refer to as “an arm punch”. In other words, you’re using the smaller muscles of your arm/shoulder to generate power, which is far less than the power you can generate with your hips and torso combined with weight transference. We want open shoulders for HBUs.
The Spear
When you throw a spear, the arrow head goes first and everything else is directly behind it. The spear points in the direction of the target. The tail is not higher or lower, left or right. Everything is in one line headed for the target. This is the same for your forearm. Your fist/knuckles are the spear tip and your elbow is the tail of the spear. Make sure your forearm lines up with the target just like a spear would.
Weight Transfer
When in a fighting stance, we generally have a 50/50 weight distribution (half front leg, half back). If you shift from one leg to the other, you’re “throwing your weight around”. Imagine slapping someone on the back of the head. Then imagine doing it to someone standing on the footpath while you sit on a motor bike speeding past them at 60mph. Which would hurt more? Even though the slap part of the movement is the same, the difference is how the rest of your body is moving. Your weight is being thrown (in this case by the motor bike) and all that momentum is adding to the slap. For HBUs, we’ll be transferring weight from leg to leg in coordination with the punches to generate maximum power.
Skimming Stones
This refers to the sequence of movements from your feet up through your body. Not all body parts move at the same time. There’s a sort of ripple effect from the ground up. The timing for each body part to fire is complicated to describe but you already know exactly how to do it. Think of “skimming stones”, when you throw a flat stone across the water to make it bounce multiple times before sinking. Visualise the perfect throw and how the movement starts from the feet, driving a hip rotation which then twists the torso. The lower body is almost finished even before the arm starts and the very last thing to happen is a flick of the wrist. You’ll observe a similar technique if you watch a baseball pitcher throw a baseball, or cricket bowler throw a cricket ball. Also a golf swing, hurling swing, slingshot, javelin throw etc. There are numerous examples. Your HBUs will borrow from that same timing sequence.
ALTA Workbook Week 4
Hook
If a straight punch (jab or cross) hits the nose or your opponent, a hook is anything that comes as the jaw, cheek or temple at the side of the face. It’s a circular punch that approaches the target in an arc.
● Thumb up or Thumb back?
This refers to the fist on impact. There are two positions and different boxing coaches will swear blind that one or other is right or wrong. You could land with your thumb knuckles facing the ceiling or your thumb knuckle facing back towards yourself. If you study all your favourite fighters (boxing, Muay Thai or MMA), you’ll see as many of one as the other. Personally, I don’t believe it makes a huge difference as long as you keep “The Spear” concept from earlier. Try both on a punch bag and whichever one feels better, that’s your way.
● Lead Hook versus Rear Hook
Even though the actual punch is the same from front or back hand, the position of your hips and body relative to your opponent is different. Your lead hand is already quite close to its finishing position. Therefore, it doesn’t have much room to develop strong momentum. Because of that, you’ll need a “wind-up”. Turn your hips/torso in the opposite direction to the punch to get yourself a run up and that will generate power in the lead hook. For the rear hook, you don’t need a wind-up. You’ve got all the runway you need already. Just let it go.
● Direction
Hook punches are horizontal in direction, which means your weight will shift from one leg to another along with a rotation of your torso. There are no diagonal forces.
Bodyshot and Uppercuts
These two punches are almost the same. The only difference is the target and direction.
● Hand position
In both bodyshots and uppercuts, the palm of your hand will face back at you as you land the punch.
● Wind-up (loading of hips)
Because these punches have an upward direction to them, this means that in order to give you space to generate momentum in that direction, you need to drop your level lower before the punch. On the lead bodyshot/uppercut, this level change will combine with the wind-up to create a type of corkscrew motion in the opposite direction of the punch. It’s like loading a spring or cocking a gun. Once you’ve hit the bottom of the wind-up, you can unleash that potential as bodyweight movement behind the punch. For the rear bodyshot/uppercut, just a level change is necessary as the wind-up is covered by the fact that your rear hand already has room to build momentum without a wind-up.
● Direction
The body shot is diagonally up, diagonally forwards (think of punching up under the ribs). This informs the direction of the wind-up (exactly the opposite direction).
For the uppercut, the wind-up is the same as the bodyshot but there’s an additional
ALTA Workbook Week 4
Grappling – Mount escapes
Possibly one of the scariest positions to find yourself is mount bottom. The danger from punches, elbows and headbutts here is catastrophic (even though you only need to worry about punches in amateur MMA competition, we always think about real world self defence as we learn).
Base and Posture
Your first instinct will be to cover your head to protect against punches. This is 100% understandable. However, it’s a mistake, that will only allow the situation to get worse. Your priority is to escape the position. You may eat a couple of shots in the process. Just accept that as your punishment for allowing yourself to get mounted in the first place. The correct posture is to press your elbows against your partner’s thighs (preventing them from advancing to a high mount) and hands on hips (in preparation for the escape). You also need to pull your heels as close to your hips as possible to give you the power of a bridging and shrimping. “What about my face?”, you ask. The main danger is when your partner postures up to throw punches. As soon as they do, use your knee in their butt to knock them forwards onto their hands. When their hands are on the mat, they’re not punching you and you can focus on escaping (more about this in the first escape).
Trap and Roll
This follows on nicely from the knee in the butt to get their hands on the mat. As they’re hands are on the mat, grab one of them with both your arms quickly and clamp their forearm to your chest with their elbow as close to your stomach as possible. Now also trap their same side leg by stepping your foot outside theirs and “heel, toe, heel, toe” inwards to clamp it to your hip. So if you trapped their right arm, you should now also have their right foot trapped. That means they no longer have “base” on that side. In other words if you push them in that direction, they can’t extend any limbs in that direction to prevent themselves from falling over. Now is the time to bridge and roll towards their trapped side. Remember to take your head off the centre line and get your hips as high as you can before you roll. You’ll finish on top inside their guard.
Knee to Elbow
If you cannot trap an arm to do the Trap and Roll, then often, the knee to elbow is next. For this you need to spin on your side to get one leg flat to the mat (knee pointed down into the mat). Notice I said ‘spin’, not roll. You will not be able to roll due to their knees acting a book ends either side of your hips. Spinning on the spot is your only option. You can achieve this by pushing one of your feet into the mat to spin you on your side. It’s important that you press your bottom elbow against their knee as you do this. This will push their shin and foot closer to your feet. Next you’ve got to dig your bottom knee under their shin. Think of using a scraping knife to take wallpaper down. Your knee is the sharp edge of the scraper. Once you get a start, now drive with your elbow to push their knee all the way over your bottom thigh. When their knee drops behind your thigh, now you flip to your opposite side (flip, not roll). You’ll end up facing your partner with one leg between their two. Use that leg to hook behind ALTA Workbook Week 4
their leg that’s closest to you (establishing half-guard). Also look to get the underhook and block their cross-face (more on that in a later week). I’d be happy to see you establish half guard with your legs at this point.
Note: Sometimes, a top player might have flexible ankles and it will be tough to dig your knee under their shin due to the lack of a gap. In this case, you can use your top foot to “rake” their leg back over yours or use your toes of the top foot to “scoop” under their foot and lift it on top of yours. Then just continue the escape as above.
Note 2: If the top player has their feet joined together behind your butt, you’ll have to separate them using your feet first before spinning on your side. It’s a fight, but it’s doable.
Shrimp or Kip
This is the simplest of the 3 provided you’ve got a good bridge and shrimp. In this escape you have 2 hands on their hips. You bridge aggressively as you lock out both arms to push their hips further away. As you do this, push them more to one side than the other (doesn’t matter which side). It’s vital that once you lock out your arms that they stay locked out. You should now have space to shrimp your ass backwards away from under them. You’re technically free from mount once your knees are out. Make sure you either finish with a butterfly guard (more on this later) or all the way out to having your feet on their hips.
The Kip escape is a variation of this for when the top player has their feet joined behind your thighs in a low mount. After the bridge and locked out arms, when you’re on your side you flap your legs in a sort of dolphin tail kick (known as a kip). This wiggling movement frees your knee-line for the same escape.
Wrestling – Bodylock takedowns
Anytime you’ve got your hands joined as your arms are wrapped around the torso of your opponent, you’ve got a bodylock. You could be in front of, beside, or behind them. There are numerous different takedown opportunities from the bodylock as you’ve got supreme control of their hips at this point. We’ll cover a selection. It’s not important to know every single variation. As you work through them, it’s likely that one or two will work for you and those are the ones you should latch on to and make part of your game.
Hand Grips
S-Grip, Gable Grip (palm to palm), butterfly grip or C-Clamp grip are the 4 main grips that you can use. Interlocking your fingers is not a good idea. It’s not very effective. You can’t do it with gloves on and you run the risk of dislocating your fingers. All of the 4 good grips keep your fingers tightly pressed against each other for support.
● S-Grip: curl your fingers into a hook on each hand and connect them
● Gable Grip: Connect your palms together with a quarter turn so that your fingers are perpendicular to the fingers on the other hand. Then curl them around the back of each hand. ALTA Workbook Week 4
● Butterfly Grip: Cross your wrists and curl your hands around your lower forearms.
● C-Clamp: Make the letter C with one hand and use that to tightly grab the wrist of the other.
Entry to the bodylock
For practice purposes, we’ll enter the bodylock from the 50/50 over/under position. One person will pummel to get to double unders and join their hands behind the back of their opponent. Now you’re into the bodylock sequence.
Traversing around the body.
It’s important to be able to work your way around the body while maintaining the body lock grip. Starting from chest to chest (Front Bodylock), circle your feet to one side, keeping your head on the chest. This brings you to Side Bodylock (head on chest variation). Pause there. Now “shook” their arm over your head with a shrug or your underhook shoulder as you continue to circle your feet to the back. Now you’re in Back Bodylock. Pause there. (Be sure not to put your leg between theirs when on the back body lock. There’s leg lock danger there. Also keep your ear pressed against their spine to avoid elbows or the “Batman Backfist”. Now circle your feet again in the same direction, keeping your ear on the back this time. Now you’ve reached Side Bodylock (head on back variation). Pause there.
Takedowns from 4 Bodylock positions
As you’ll notice, there’s 4 primary bodylock positions. Let’s do 1 takedown from each.
Front Bodylock = Limbo Spine Crush
Put your forehead on the centre of your partner’s chest and bring your bodylock grip down to their lower back. As you drive your head forward, pull their lower back towards your, making them limbo under the pressure. Walk your feet forwards outside each of their feet to end up in full mount.
Side Bodlylock (head on chest variation) = Power Twist and/or Knee lever
Step your leg that’s currently behind your partner in front of them, hip to hip. Use the bodylock grip to twist them down towards the mat. They will put an arm down for balance. As soon as that arm touches, now you change direction to drive forward through them putting their back on the ground.
The Knee Lever is available if you step in front of them (hip to hip) to attempt the power twist and they re-step in front of you to stop it. In that case, you bump their hamstring with your quads and pull them backwards to the ground.
Back Bodylock = Lift and Trip
Hop your feet closer to them and get your hips against their butt. Slightly lift their feet off the ground using the bodylock while simultaneously sweeping their two legs to one side. As they come back down, they’ll land on their side (as long as you got their feet far enough sideways). ALTA Workbook Week 4
Side Bodylock (head on back variation) = Jack Russell mat return.
Clamp your thigh around their leg that’s closest to you. With your head on their back, throw your weight forwards towards where they’re facing. This will cause them to put their hands on the mat. As they fall, you stay on your feet, shuffling to stay beside them as you upgrade your grip to a chest lock (your bodylock just slides higher around their chest). Make sure you stay heavy over their upper body so that they cannot lift their hands off them mat. From here you can pull them sideways to sit them on a hip. ALTA Workbook Week 4